Search results for " soil erosion"
showing 10 items of 29 documents
An assessment of the global impact of 21st century land use change on soil erosion
2017
Human activity and related land use change are the primary cause of accelerated soil erosion, which has substantial implications for nutrient and carbon cycling, land productivity and in turn, worldwide socio-economic conditions. Here we present an unprecedentedly high resolution (250 × 250 m) global potential soil erosion model, using a combination of remote sensing, GIS modelling and census data. We challenge the previous annual soil erosion reference values as our estimate, of 35.9 Pg yr−1 of soil eroded in 2012, is at least two times lower. Moreover, we estimate the spatial and temporal effects of land use change between 2001 and 2012 and the potential offset of the global application o…
Soil erosion processes in European vineyards: A qualitative comparison of rainfall simulation measurements in Germany, Spain and France
2016
Small portable rainfall simulators are considered a useful tool to analyze soil erosion processes in cultivated lands. European research groups in Spain (Valencia, Málaga, Lleida, Madrid and La Rioja), France (Reims) and Germany (Trier) have used different rainfall simulators (varying in drop size distribution and fall velocities, kinetic energy, plot forms and sizes, and field of application) to study soil loss, surface flow, runoff and infiltration coefficients in different experimental plots (Valencia, Montes de Málaga, Penedès, Campo Real and La Rioja in Spain, Champagne in France and Mosel-Ruwer valley in Germany). The measurements and experiments developed by these research teams give…
Assessing, measuring and modelling erosion in calanchi areas: A review
2016
Calanchi are erosion landforms characterised by a heavily dissected terrain with steep, unvegetated slopes and channels with a dendritic pattern, which rapidly incise and extend headwards. Recent literature focusing on badland systems highlights their similarity with other larger fluvial landforms, stating that these behave as a full size laboratory, due to their rapid development in space and time and to the diversity of geomorphic processes involved. In this paper, a brief review of the most important results on badland research is firstly presented. Then, the morphometric similarity between calanchi and other erosion landforms is discussed. Finally, models quantitatively relating the vol…
Predicting soil loss in central and south Italy with a single USLE-MM model
2018
Purpose: The USLE-MM estimates event normalized plot soil loss, Ae,N, by an erosivity term given by the runoff coefficient, QR, times the single-storm erosion index, EI30, raised to an exponent b1> 1. This modeling scheme is based on an expected power relationship, with an exponent greater than one, between event sediment concentration, Ce, and the EI30/Pe(Pe= rainfall depth) term. In this investigation, carried out at the three experimental sites of Bagnara, Masse, and Sparacia, in Italy; the soundness of the USLE-MM scheme was tested. Materials and methods: A total of 1192 (Ae,N, QREI30) data pairs were used to parameterize the model both locally and considering all sites simultaneously. …
Quantitative comparison of initial soil erosion processes and runoff generation in Spanish and German vineyards.
2016
The aim of this study was to enable a quantitative comparison of initial soil erosion processes in European vineyards using the same methodology and equipment. The study was conducted in four viticultural areas with different characteristics (Valencia and Málaga in Spain, Ruwer-Mosel valley and Saar-Mosel valley in Germany). Old and young vineyards, with conventional and ecological planting and management systems were compared. The same portable rainfall simulator with identical rainfall intensity (40 mm h− 1) and sampling intervals (30 min of test duration, collecting the samples at 5-min-intervals) was used over a circular test plot with 0.28 m2. The results of 83 simulations have been an…
Slope threshold for overland flow resistance on sandy soils
2021
Recent research on rill flows recognised that an 18% slope can be used to distinguish between ‘gentle’ and ‘steep’ slope cases for the detected differences in hydraulic (flow depth and velocity) and sediment transport variables (flow transport capacity, actual sediment load). The effects of slope on flow velocity, friction factor and transport capacity and their interactions affect process-based erosion modelling. The main aim of this paper is to investigate, for the first time, how slope affects the overland flow resistance on sandy soils, which are characterised by loose particles readily available to be transported and deposited. Using literature measurements carried out in sandy soils f…
Flow resistance in mobile bed rills shaped in soils with different texture
2021
Rill erosion is considered one of the most important soil processes because of the large amount of soil loss due to the development of a rill network able to promote an efficient transport of both rill flow-detached particles and those delivered from the inter-rill areas. Rill flow experiments are useful to overcome the gap in rill hydraulics knowledge and to test the reliability of currently applied uniform open channel flow equations for mobile bed rills. In this paper the applicability of a theoretical flow resistance equation, based on a power-velocity profile, to rill channels shaped on soils having different textures was investigated. The measurements (437 runs) of water depth, cross-…
Using a physically-based model, tRIBS-Erosion, for investigating the effects of climate change in semi-arid headwater basins.
2013
Soil erosion due to rainfall detachment and flow entrainment of soil particles is a physical process responsible for a continuous evolution of landscapes. The rate and spatial distribution of this phenomenon depend on several factors such as climate, hydrologic regime, geomorphic characteristics, and vegetation of a basin. Many studies have demonstrated that climate-erosion linkage in particular influences basin sediment yield and landscape morphology. Although soil erosion rates are expected to change in response to climate, these changes can be highly non-linear and thus require mechanistic understanding of underlying causes. In this study, an integrated geomorphic component of the physic…
MANUAL SAMPLING AND TANK SIZE EFFECTS ON THE CALIBRATION CURVE OF PLOT SEDIMENT STORAGE TANKS
2004
In many experimental soil erosion plots, runoff is collected and carried by a conveyance system to a sequence of storage tanks. If the soil loss is measured by collecting, after mixing, samples of the stored suspension, then a calibration curve between the actual mean concentration (C) and the measured concentration (Cm) in the storage tank occurs. The aim of this article was to evaluate experimentally the factors affecting the relationship between C and Cm. For a sandy loam soil, the replicated measurements of Cm (20 samples) for two values of the actual concentration (C = 5 and 25 g/L) showed that the variability of the measurements of Cm is low and confirmed the reliability of a calibrat…
Carbon input threshold for soil carbon budget optimization in eroding vineyards
2016
Abstract Previous studies have documented that, relative to conventional tillage (CT), alternative soil management (reduced tillage, mulching, or cover crops) decreases soil erosion and increases soil organic matter (SOM) in vineyards. These previous studies, however, failed to consider the loss of soil organic carbon (SOC) with erosion that could occur with the adoption of agro-environmental measures (AEM) in a semiarid environment. Accordingly, the aims of this study were to determine whether changes in SOC content under AEM management are always positive and to develop a conceptual model for estimating the “SOC threshold”. The SOC threshold was defined as that level of SOC in an AEM-mana…